A SCATHING report has condemned the leader of Leicestershire County Council for breaking the councillors’ code of conduct five times.

Councillor David Parsons was strongly censured by County Hall’s standards committee on Tuesday after it found he had delayed handing over money to East Midlands Councils (EMC)given to him to pay for official trips to Brussels.

Investigating officer Claire Lefort said Cllr Parsons had failed to act “transparently or fairly” and put himself in a position where his “honesty and integrity were called into question”.

The leading Tory was entitled to claim travel expenses while on business for the Committee of the Regions of the European Union but should have passed the cash on to EMC, for which he is chairman.

It took him between 98 and 468 days to pass the money on, meaning the publicly-funded EMC lost out in interest.

As well as holding onto more than £5,400 of expenses in his bank account, the leading Tory was also found to have breached four other areas of the code.

The committee found he had declined to change the system by which he was paid the money directly, despite being advised to by chief executive John Sinnott, and obstructed an internal investigation into the matter by refusing several times to release information on his expenses.

It also concluded that he lied to a local Government magazine, telling it he was co-operating with the investigation when he was not, and also admonished him for failing to register an interest in his consultancy firm Probert-West.

Ms Lefort said: “As leader of the council and chairman of EMRA/EMC, I consider that Cllr Parsons should have set an impeccable example in his dealings with public money, and instead I consider that he acted in a way which undermined and damaged public confidence.”

During the hearing Ms Lefort said Cllr Parsons had “sought to blame others”, telling the panel it was his wife and not him who handled the finances.

It also took him four months to arrange settling the debt from the date of the first whistleblowing letter in October last year.

But despite the severe attacks the leader, who survived a vote of no confidence in April surrounding his use of the council’s chauffeur-driven car to attend Tory events, has refused to resign.

Cllr Parsons, who was appointed CBE in 2009 for his services to local and regional Government, apologised for the delay in payments and said he had made sure new procedures were in place to stop it happening again.

He said: “I believe that these attacks against me have been politically motivated.

“Due process has been satisfied and I now intend to draw a line under the matter.”

He said he had calculated the possible loss of interest to EMC over six years as £150 and would repay that and make a similar donation to charity.

One group who won’t be drawing any line is the area’s Liberal Democrat team, who said his “stunning level of arrogance” and “complete refusal to accept responsibility” meant his position was untenable.

Leader of Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council Stuart Bray said: “There’s a lot of Tory councillors defending him by saying innocent until proven guilty. He has now been proven guilty and if he won’t go voluntarily then he needs to be forced out and sacked.

“There is also more to come on his attendance of fundraising dinners.”

Recent changes by the Government meant the standards committee no longer had the option of suspending him, instead giving him a strong censure, ordering him to write a written apology and undertake training on the code of conduct.

It will now be up to the Conservative group to decide any further punishment.